BIOL 210 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Randomized Controlled Trial, Craniosacral Therapy, Pseudoscience
09/14/2017
Lecture 4
• Reasons for pseudoscience are ideological or commercial
• Science also has ideology and commercial motivation behind it, but on the researcher’s
website there isn’t a direct ask for money (i.e. a link to a course)
• There are grey areas: minority scientists who think they have something important but are
not part of consensus
o I.e. Pasteur
o These people don’t advertise with money or direct ideological claims
• Pseudoscience is in the link to real science i.e. a phd to try to take money from you
• Tenure protects professors from being dismissed due to having an idea outside of
consensus
o University is autonomous institution
• Web of science lists legitimate scientific journals
o Anyone can start a journal and give it a fancy name
• There are commercial empires involved in publishing in the world of science
o But there is a lack of a direct link to money
• Predatory journals spam scientists
• Craniosacral therapy: based on the fact that in your spinal cord and around your brain
there is a fluid, and this fluid is supposed to have certain pulsations
o Craniosacral therapists gently touch your head, neck, and back to see where the
fluids are unbalanced/not well
o There is no empirical basis that craniosacral fluids have much to do with anything
â–Ş No found mechanism
o There is no empirical basis that you can figure out balance of these fluids based
on touch
o The imbalance of these fluids can be blamed for stress, pain, anything
o Despite the pseudoscience, people feel better afterwards
â–Ş Placebo effect
â–Ş We need to do a randomized clinical trial
• One doctor says what’s wrong with placebo if the goal of healthcare is to make you feel
better?
• Hard to find a good control group for craniosacral therapies, dolphin-assisted therapy,
etc. so these are unfalsifiable
• Acupuncture: they did find a way to control for it
• Meta-analysis: systematic review of entire empirical literature
o Inclusion-exclusion criteria
o Quantitative overall estimate of effect strength
o Weighted by size and variation of each study
â–Ş Big and small variance is better
o Estimation of publication bias
• Randomized clinical trial→ downs and black checklist for quality of sample and controls
o 27 elements
o Is the hypothesis clearly described?
o Are the main outcomes to be measured clearly described in the introduction or
methods section?
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